Occasionally I check my Requests page which displays what keywords people where searching for when they came to my pages. It turns out that unknowingly Quasimondo has become #1 result for matrix effect swf. I don't know how that evolved, but on the other hand I don't want to disappoint those who came here in search of enlightenment. So as it's a slow day anyway I did a little research what free tutorials and .fla files there are that give you the needed effect. It looks like lots of them are pretty old and from the first Matrix Movie, but I think the 3D stuff which was applied to the type cascades in Reloaded are too overwhelming for Flash anyway.

In order to compare the results with the original effect you could have a look at the Matrix Website. Or check out this poster that features the type effect very prominent. You can also see that it's made out of reversed numbers and japanese katakana chars. You can see that the lines get brighter and hav more glow towards the bottom. The original effect was created by Animal Logic and they explain some details about it one their site. I've also found a very detailed tutorial on how to build the effect in Adobe AfterEffects - perhaps that helps you if you want to bulild it yourself.

So here's what you can expect:

SitePoint offers a tutorial, but I would see that only as a starting point, as the effect is not 100% convincing. I don't remember 0s and 1s in the movie. Rating: 4/10

Frank Baumgartner has a ZIP file containing a Flash 5 .fla for download. He also just does zeros and ones instead of reversed Katakana, but the lighting and motion are going in the right direction. Bonus points for the slight glow. The amount of cascades is a bit thin, but I think that's a decision for performance. The colors are too blue for my taste. Rating: 6/10

On Kirupa you'll find a .fla by Ilyas Usal. No Katakana but random letters. The layering and fading are going in the right direction - no glow here which could improve the appearance. The colorscheme seems quite right. Rating: 6/10

FlashAdvisor - BTW a site I've never hear of before - has a download by Martin Selva. Again it's just 0s and 1s, no fading, no glow and the dribbling it's too fast in my eyes. Rating: 3/10

Of course FlashKit has a whole bunch of "Matrix" movies ready for download:

David Sandell's is okay, but I miss the layering and the gradients are not the real thing, but hey, it's Flash 4. Rating: 5/10

Hello everyone,
First of all, I'm very honored to be in this list, there are quite a few very nice effects! I also wanted to say that the effect @ kirupa had been updated to resemble a bit more the original matrix effect.

Wow, I was searching Google and I found my name here, I'm surprised! I'm Devon Lawler. Initialy this had a 10/10 on Flash and was featured on some CD I guess, just for some background info on it ;). Anyways, just figured I'd drop in and say hello ;)